This is the mantra that my management is always beating us over the head with but I don't know any co-worker that doesn't respond to email quickly, usually if not in hours in minutes.

The ongoing issue is the people that WE service are the ones that will not respond to OUR email for days, weeks, months. Many times they simply never respond. It just irks me to no end to hear this and makes me want to point THEM out but that will only get me marked as a troublemaker.

Anyone else have this situation? I work for a very large company and it's all internal customers from this same company, not outside people that are the problem.

The problem that you have is that you are apparently conscientious, and want to actually solve the issue the email chain was about. Your internal customer apparently doesn't care.

The solution, is to respond promptly, and then put it out of you head until they reply back you you.

This is called "Making It Someone Else's Problem" and is highly effective in large, highly structured, dysfunctional organizations with stupid rules.

Oh, and be sure to use lots of corporate speak in the reply, you know "I'm reaching out..." "making sure I support..." "baking that in..." "leveraging competencies to ___________ (fill in the blank)".

If you do these things, you will (i) comply with the request to reply promptly; (ii) look like an energetic team player who spent too much time in business school; (iii) have much more free time per the approved Someone Else's Problem protocol; and (iv) be subtly sticking it to the man.

Good luck, don't let it get you down, and have a beer tonight. Maybe an order of hot wings, too.

'Tschuss, brother!

Thats some funny, yet reality based stuff Artie... LOL

I have been known to add a line near the bottom of my response something like.
"Bill, if you have read this line, contact me to collect your dollar."

Bill was one who never read responses to his emails, even if they were answering a question he raised.

quote:

Originally posted by ArtieS:
The problem that you have is...

'Tschuss, brother!

We must have talked at some point in real life...

Please let me know if you do NOT receive this email.

In my experience, the people who acted that way were the ones who didn't know how to use email effectively in the first place. They'd write long meandering tomes with the needed info, if any, buried somewhere within.

We actually taught our guys that any email over a paragraph long likely wouldn't get read.

quote:

Originally posted by zoom6zoom:
any email over a paragraph long likely wouldn't get read.

That's being generous. I think 2 short bullet points is near the maximum content.